An industrial controller may be a separate device or it may be integrated into a computer, a PC, a stand-alone unit or a drive.
Prior industrial controllers for automation of technical processes have been based essentially either on a programmable controller functionality, a motion control (“MC”) functionality or a technology functionality. Since a certain scope of function is stipulated as part of such functionalities, optimal adaptation to the requirements of a special process is limited. An entire group of functions is often superfluous in a specific application (e.g., when using an MC controller for machine tools, any functionality that might be provided for packaging machines would be superfluous).
German Patent 197 40 550 also describes a device that executes a control program for controlling a technical process and/or controlling the motion of a processing machine. This control program comprises a plurality of software modules. Process control functionalities of known programmable controllers, and motion functionalities of known MC controllers, are implemented in a uniform configurable control system. However, individual software modules here are executed by a partial subgroup control so that a central processing unit is to be provided for each software module.
In addition, German Patent 198 53 205 discloses a method of controlling technical processes where the method is based on instantiability and interleaving of software components with a preselectable functionality, which is at least parameterizable. However, the interleaving and design of the software components are not optimized.